Many of the homes and a few vehicles on San Joaquin Dr, in Canyon Lake, were vandalized Wednesday night, in addition to the homes and vehicles some of the community parks were also damaged. ANDREW FOULK

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Many of the homes and a few vehicles on San Joaquin Dr, in Canyon Lake, were vandalized Wednesday night, in addition to the homes and vehicles some of the community parks were also damaged. ANDREW FOULK

Many of the homes and a few vehicles on San Joaquin Dr, in Canyon Lake, were vandalized Wednesday night, in addition to the homes and vehicles some of the community parks were also damaged. ANDREW FOULK

+Read Caption

Many of the homes and a few vehicles on San Joaquin Dr, in Canyon Lake, were vandalized Wednesday night, in addition to the homes and vehicles some of the community parks were also damaged. ANDREW FOULK

CANYON LAKE, Calif.  Maya Shih has seen an occasional toilet-papering job hit a house or two over the past 23 years at her lakeview Canyon Lake home. But the vandalism she found Thursday morning — spray-painted slogans and pictures across her walls and those of her neighbor’s renovated home — was nothing like she’d ever seen in the gated city northeast of Lake Elsinore.

“I was shocked,” she said. “In Canyon Lake, it shouldn’t happen like this. It was so bad. Especially my neighbor’s house. He hasn’t even moved in yet.”

The damage done to Shih’s home was just a small snippet of a vandalism spree that hit a number of homes, several vehicles and buildings and playground equipment at Sierra Park with spray-painted slogans, obscene language and drug-culture pictures.

Catherine Wilson, director of operations for the Canyon Lake Property Owners Association, estimated the damage to public property at about $2,500 in materials and labor. While the total cost of the damage is undetermined, it exceeds the threshold needed to be considered a felony, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

There were no leads in the case as of Friday afternoon, according to sheriff’s Sgt. Victor Tejada.

The property owners association, meanwhile, is considering offering a reward leading to an arrest and prosecution, said Larry Neigel, the POA’s vice president

“This was a very severe situation,” Wilson said. “It’s all over parks, several homes and private property.”

Wilson said her staff had the majority of the spray-painted slogans and pictures at Sierra Park — which marred a dock, playground equipment, the bathroom and sidewalks — cleaned up within six hours, only to learn that the bathroom had been hit again by Friday morning.

Initial reports trickled in to the property owners association around 6 a.m. Thursday. Police later responded to calls regarding both the park and surrounding properties on West San Joaquin Drive and Granite Dome Place, which included spray-painted tags on mailboxes, sidewalks, homes and cars.

Sean McDonald was preparing to shuttle his son off to classes at Temescal Canyon High School when he found four of his cars — three Mercedeses and a Rolls Royce — marked up with spray paint.

“I just thought someone thought my cars would look good with a new paint job,” said McDonald, who is on the POA’s board of directors. “Then I saw the whole street — someone painted nasty slogans on my cars and went up and down the block and basically did the same thing.”

Wilson said the POA suspected the vandals either lived within the city gates or were assisted in entering the community, which covers more than 380 acres.

Neigel said the POA was about to switch security companies and is finalizing a new contract with Universal Protection Services, which will provide three patrolling officers and a supervisor per shift, all of whom will have the ability to detain suspects until police can arrive. The contract with the current company only allows the security force to report suspicious activity to the sheriff’s deputy. The cash-strapped city contracts for 24 hours of service per day, meaning only one deputy is on duty at any given time.

“In the course of a day — when the deputy is making an arrest — there are times we have nobody here,” Neigel said. “Because of these gaps in coverage, we want to step up our security forces as a safety net.”

This is a development that pleases McDonald.

“Criminals must love Canyon Lake, especially if they are operating outside of banker’s hours,” McDonald said, referring to the hours kept by City Hall, which houses the police station. “One cop — and God knows where he’s at when someone is tagging — is no deterrent.”

He said the solution isn’t spending a lot more money to add another officer: “The solution is a more proactive security force.”